Modern House - Edinburgh, UK
| Lismhor: Easter Belmont Rd |
Corstorphine
Lismhor, No. 11 Easter Belmont Rd, 1933/35
Kininmonth & Spence
Review Apr 2002 after visits and tour by architect-owner
One of a series of 1930's modern houses in this private road.
This building is a strong, modern house that works well with the sloping site. A product of a superb combination: Sir Basil Urwin Spence [1907-76] is well known internationally as the architect of Coventry Cathedral, Sussex University, London's Household Cavalry Barracks and of course Edinburgh's John Lewis Department Store; Sir William Hardie Kininmonth [1904] is less well known but designed No.6 St Andrew Square, the well-balanced Scottish Provident Building (1961), under Rowand Anderson Kininmonth & Paul: Edinburgh New Town. He worked with Spence from 1932 and was also an assistant to Sir Edwin Lutyens. His own house is featured at the bottom of this page.
The building presents the visitor with a discreet entry - reached via asymmetric terraces and steps - offset with a large rectilinear area of fenestration floating over the double garage. The flat roofs gently overhang and the palette is mostly white render.
The light-filled entrance hall is double-height and the disposition and arrangement of rooms is subtle, modern but not avant-garde. The southern elevation contains that potent thirties motif, the semi-circular fenestrated bay: here it comes complete with a secondary smaller roof, a playful twist. The garden slopes steeply away on this side aswell, leaving the eastern facade to tower forcefully over the garden (bottom image), whilst the western edge rests more humbly close to the hillside.
The national context for this crisp white style means it is not the first of its type, but is still contemporary to the De La Warr Pavilion of 1933 by Chermayeff and Mendelsohn. In Edinburgh, Sir Basil Spence's Causewayside Garage and Kininmonth's 46a Dick Place were completed in 1933 and locally Spence completed Miss Reid's house in the same road in 1934.
The building is in a good state of repair and owned by a retired architect and his wife: all the photos are copyright of the owners.
Close by, off Ravelston Dykes Road is another cluster at the entrance to Mary Erskine's School.
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